PTSD

9/11: A Decade Later: PTSD Rate Still High Among City's Survivors

9/11: A Decade Later: PTSD Rate Still High Among City's Survivors By: Bobby Cuza

A new study shows many who were exposed to the actions surrounding the September 11th attacks may still suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. NY1's Bobby Cuza filed the following report.

New York City resident Kathleen Waters says it pains her to go back to the World Trade Center site. She hasn’t returned since a single act of terrorism brought the towers down on September 11, 2001. The legal assistant escaped with her life after running down 86 flights of stairs from her Tower Two office.

"I look at the scenes where they show the hole in the building and I’m saying to myself, 'Wow. I was right below that,'" says Waters.

A number of health experts say many survivors are still reliving the horrific events of that day. A joint study by the New York City Department of Health and Columbia University found that over 95 percent of 3,000 survivors surveyed reported at least one symptom of post traumatic stress disorder.

As death toll of 9/11 responders nears 1,000, pols want autopsy standards to pinpoint causes

from the NY DAILY NEWS today, Nov 11, 2010
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As death toll of 9/11 responders nears 1,000, pols want autopsy standards to pinpoint causes

WASHINGTON - The staggering death toll for Ground Zero responders has soared past 916 - and still no one knows what really killed them.

Now, nine years after the terror attacks, doctors and some New York lawmakers are urging the federal Department of Health and Human Services to draft autopsy protocols to pinpoint 9/11-related fatalities, the Daily News has learned.

Astonishingly, there are no written standards to help doctors diagnose post-9/11 deaths, leaving a void that's wreaked enormous emotional pain and conflict on survivors.

"It was heart-wrenching," said Joe Zadroga, who watched his NYPD officer son, James, slowly deteriorate from scarred lungs until he died in 2007.

MENTAL HEALTH STUDY: 9/11 rescue workers at increased risk for PTSD

NEW YORK — A new study likens post-traumatic stress disorder in World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers to that of U.S. war veterans returning from Afghanistan.

The findings are published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
FULL STUDY in PDF:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/11164/11164.pdf

The study found that the many trade center workers suffered chronic impairment of mental health and social functioning, as well as psychological distress levels that substantially exceeded population norms.

Its authors say the findings underscore a need for long-term mental health screening and surveillance, and continued treatment for the workers and their families.

Questionnaires were filled out by 10,132 workers. The authors say nearly 9 percent met criteria for depression, 5 percent for panic disorders, 62 percent for "substantial stress reaction," and 11 percent for post-traumatic stress disorder.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,430745,00.html

PTSD High Among Witnesses to 9/11

Friday, June 13, 2008; 12:00 AM

FRIDAY, June 13 (HealthDay News) -- Two to three years after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, one in eight residents who lived near the site had signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a New York City Health Department study reports.

This rate, 12.6 percent, among Lower Manhattan residents is three times the usual rate and matches the 12.4 percent rate reported among rescue and recovery workers. Residents who were injured during the attacks had the highest rate of PTSD symptoms (38 percent), followed by those who witnessed violent deaths and those caught in the dust cloud after the towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The most commonly reported PTSD symptoms were hyper-vigilance, nightmares and emotional reactions to reminders of 9/11.

The study, based on surveys of 11,000 residents through the World Trade Center Health Registry, also found that divorced people reported PTSD symptoms at twice the rate of married people (21.5 percent vs. 9.5 percent), possibly because divorced people received less emotional support, the researchers suggested.

Continued.......

Trauma of 9/11 appears to have altered brains, study suggests

Brain Scan,MRI Brain Scan PTSD

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of healthy adults more than three years after Sept. 11, 2001, shows areas that have less gray matter volume in those who were near ground zero on 9/11, compared with those who were much farther away. This is three views of the brain areas that have lower gray matter volume in the 9/11-exposed group. Notably, all of these areas (which show up brighter in this image) are associated with the processing of emotion.

Healthy adults who were close to the World Trade Center during the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, have less gray matter in key emotion centers of their brains compared with people who were more than 200 miles away, finds a new Cornell study.

"This suggests that really bad experiences may have lasting effects on the brain, even in healthy people," said Barbara Ganzel, the study's lead researcher and postdoctoral fellow at Cornell's College of Human Ecology.

Bereaved Children of 9/11 Victims Suffered High Rates of Psychiatric Illness

Source: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/528209/?sc=rsmn

Source: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center/Weill Cornell Medical College

Released: Mon 19-Mar-2007, 16:00 ET

Bereaved Children of 9/11 Victims Suffered High Rates of Psychiatric Illness

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Keywords
DR. CYNTHIA PFEFFER, DR. MARGARET ALTEMUS, PSYCHIATRY, ANXIETY DISORDER, POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, PTSD, SEPT. 11, BEREAVEMENT, DEPRESSION

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The rate of psychiatric illness among children who lost a parent in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack doubled -- from about 32 to nearly 73 percent -- in the years following the event, according to a new study from researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Newswise — The rate of psychiatric illness among children who lost a parent in the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attack doubled -- from about 32 to nearly 73 percent -- in the years following the event, according to a new study from researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

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